Nine candidates have put their names forward to become the next chief of the Lafayette Police Department, as it struggles to establish consistent leadership after two years of repeated upheaval.
The applicants are all from Louisiana and most are from the Lafayette area. They are: former State Trooper Brian Ardoin; Lafayette police Sgt. Dorian Brabham; retired U.S. Air Force Col. Christophe DeGuelle; retired FBI special agent Charles DeLaughter; Lafayette police Cmdr. Judith Estorge; Shreveport police Sgt. Michael Jones; Erick Knezek, a reserve deputy with the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office; Gallaudet University police Officer Marcus Overton; and Lafayette police Maj. Dewitt Sheridan.
The next chief will be the sixth Lafayette Police Department leader since parish Mayor-President Josh Guillory took office in January 2020.
The current opening was created when Guillory’s administration fired his first pick for full-time chief, Thomas Glover, 10 months into the job. Two interim leaders have headed the department since Glover’s departure.
To become police chief, a candidate must have at least a bachelor’s degree or have been continuously employed with the Lafayette Police Department before Oct. 18, 1979; must have 10 years of experience with a law enforcement agency of comparable or larger size; and must pass a civil service exam administered by the Office of State Examiner.
At least one of the candidates, Knezek, appears not to meet the advertised requirements for the position, falling short of the needed law enforcement experience.
Knezek has been a reserve deputy with the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office since 2018.
The candidates were netted after the Lafayette Municipal Fire and Police Civil Service Board granted the city-parish a 30-day extension in May to seek out prospects.
Cydra Wingerter, chief administrative officer for Lafayette Consolidated Government, and Robert Benoit, chief of staff for Guillory, told board members the extra time was needed to contract a professional law enforcement-focused search firm to help drive a more diverse pool of applicants to the job opening.
Benoit acknowledged Guillory’s administration may have been “a little premature” in asking for the initial call for applications, but Wingerter said an additional 30 days would be enough to secure a firm’s services, though the board offered longer.
Wingerter mentioned the administration was already in talks with a firm, who had relationships with potential candidates that should speed the process.
Despite assurances, a deal with a recruiting firm was never inked. Wingerter told the Lafayette City Council at its June 7 meeting that two firms had been considered, but they were unsuccessful in booking either.
The council rejected a proposed pay raise for the chief position at the same meeting; the proposed raise amount had already been included as the upper pay rate in advertisements for the position.
The outcome is similar to the Guillory administration’s 2020 police chief search, when 10 applicants put their names forward after two separate calls for candidates.
The next step of the process is for the Civil Service Board to approve the candidates to take the state’s civil service exam.
Here are the nine applicants to be Lafayette’s next police chief:
Brian Ardoin
Ardoin is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and former Louisiana State Police trooper who served with the agency from 2003 to 2013. Ardoin also worked as the director of public protection and safety at LSU at Eunice for 11 years. He owns and operates Top Cop Driving Academy in Mamou.
With State Police, Ardoin served as a patrolman, a narcotics interdiction officer, a security officer on the governor’s protection detail and a training officer who educated troopers in stun gun use, his application said.
Ardoin earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from McNeese State University in 2002 and a master’s degree in criminal justice from Southern University in 2005; he is pursuing a doctorate in criminal justice from Walden University.
Dorian Brabham
Brabham has served with the Lafayette Police Department since 2002. His current role involves leading a squad of department investigators, assigning cases, preparing cases for prosecution, managing subordinates’ reports and serving on special department task forces, his application said.
Brabham earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Columbia Southern University in 2021. He is certified as a police ethics instructor, a crime prevention specialist and in security assessment. Brabham also served with the U.S. Army National Guard, which included a tour in Iraq, his application said.
Christophe DeGuelle
DeGuelle is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and serves as the Federal Emergency Management Agency Region 6 federal liaison for the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
He previously led the Louisiana Business Emergency Operations Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette from 2018 to 2020.
DeGuelle served in the Air Force from 1995 to 2018. His work included leading a joint task force of 1,800 people in Afghanistan, serving as director of global security operations and leading criminal investigations as a police chief on several bases, his application said.
He also worked as a police guard for the University of Texas at San Antonio Police Department while pursuing his undergraduate degree.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1995 and a master’s in criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University in 2005; he completed graduate study at the Command and Staff College, Air University in 2009 and at the Air War College in 2015.
Charles DeLaughter
DeLaughter spent 40 years in law enforcement, splitting his career between the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office and the FBI. In Jefferson Parish, DeLaughter worked as a narcotics detective, juvenile division supervisor and public relations supervisor, among other positions.
With the FBI, DeLaughter served in Oklahoma and Washington, D.C., and as the supervisory special agent over the Baton Rouge FBI office. His work involved investigations into domestic and international terrorism, drug and street gangs, and cold case homicides. He retired from the agency in 2021.
DeLaughter earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Loyola University New Orleans in 1998 and graduated from the FBI’s Special Agent Training Academy in Quantico, Virginia, in 2002. He also received wire intercept training at the Institute of Policy Technology and Management and is a certified expert witness in state and federal court for narcotics cases, his application said.
Judith Estorge
Estorge has been with the Lafayette Police Department since 1993. She serves as a precinct commander, overseeing 21 officers and four sergeants, strategizing crime prevention measures, leading community policing efforts in the precinct and handling precinct operations, her application said.
Estorge earned her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1991. She also attended a command and staff college session in 2001.
Michael Jones
Jones has served with the Shreveport Police Department for 20 years. Jones manages several areas, including overseeing all domestic violence cases for the department, ensuring electronic forensics policies are followed and serving as the homicide on-call sergeant.
His other department experience includes managing officers as a patrol sergeant, investigating sex crimes as a detective and working as a patrol training officer, providing one-on-one guidance and continuing education to new officers.
Jones studied at Bossier Parish Community College and LSU at Shreveport, his application said.
Erick Knezek
Knezek has served as a reserve SWAT support deputy and dive team commander for the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office search and rescue team since 2018. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1992 to 2002.
Knezek is the founder and board director of Oceanetics, an ocean engineering solutions company that works as a maritime security defense contractor for the U.S. government and commercial clients, per its website. He also served a term on the Lafayette Parish School Board representing District 8 from 2015 to 2019.
Knezek earned a bachelor’s degree in ocean engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1996, a master’s in ocean engineering from Texas A&M University in 1997 and a Ph.D. in system engineering with a focus in specialty civil/ocean engineering in 2020 from UL.
Marcus Overton
Overton is a campus police offer at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. He has worked as a police officer since 2006, working in several towns in Mississippi, including McComb and Meridian, and in the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office in Detroit.
He earned a degree in 2017 from Bethel University in Memphis, according to his résumé.
Dewitt Sheridan
Sheridan has been with the Lafayette Police Department since 1990. Sheridan serves as the major over the criminal investigations division, overseeing nearly 100 subordinates in the sections under his command, including detectives, metro narcotics and youth services, his application said
Sheridan began his law enforcement career while in college, working as a child care attendant at the Lafayette Juvenile Detention Home.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now UL, in 1990.
